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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25951270">i wrote this thing and now you're telling me i need a fucking TITLE as well?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Echolight/pseuds/Echolight'>Echolight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Billions (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(full of spite), Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Fandom Blind Friendly, Feudalism, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Looking Canon Dead In The Eyes Before Murdering It, Magic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Taylor Has A Broadsword, by the way if you've got a title suggestion hit me the hell up because I sure don't, i mean the only people who would beta this are also the only people who would read it, no beta we die like donnie caan, one day ill delete all these tags and give this a real title and summary but today is not that day, sometimes fanfiction is a love letter to the original canon, sometimes it’s just that one telegram that says 'fuck you. strongly worded letter to follow.', this is the latter, you read that right you don't gotta know jack shit bout billions to read this fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:40:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,094</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25951270</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Echolight/pseuds/Echolight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>fuck you k&amp;l i do what i want</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i wrote this thing and now you're telling me i need a fucking TITLE as well?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=me+myself+and+fucking+i">me myself and fucking i</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Marked as Teen for now and as "Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings" but this may get changed to Mature and "Graphic Depictions of Violence" later on so be warned.</p><p>Billions + blender + medieval setting + magic + fun + Taylor has a broadsword = Billions Fantasy AU</p><p>Kind of curious to see how long it takes for someone to notice this fic if I don't directly post about it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Winston feels the solid support of unfamiliar but well-fitting boots on his feet as he walks through the slums of the Outer Circle he calls home. Axelrod Citadel—the citadel, as it’s often referred to—looms from the hill it sits utop in the distance and he can’t explain it, but <em> knows </em> that it is his destination, that he’s journeyed for quite a long distance to make it here. Although he doesn't take his eyes off the citadel, he knows that by his side, hangs a scabbard. In the peripherals of his vision, he can see people staring at him. He walks and walks, passing by the rundown shacks and storefronts he’s known all his life, but he doesn’t seem to ever get any closer. If anything, the hill it sits on only seems to grow taller and his feet more weary.</p><p>After what feels like an eternity of walking, he finally tears his gaze from the citadel and looks down at his own feet, seeing only his own ill-fitting and worn shoes again, holes and all. The ground underneath his feet is no longer dirt. In fact, squinting at the ground in the darkness, it looks like tiled stone. Then, his heart jolts and he realizes it’s gotten dark. It had just been the middle of the day the moment before.</p><p>He jerks his head back up in surprise, hoping to see the citadel as it had been, looming in the unreachable distance, but as he lifts his head, he feels sharp, cold steel following it and digging in underneath his chin. A figure he can just barely make out in the darkness stands at the other end of the unwavering blade. He looks around surreptitiously, feeling the slight movement of his head making his neck scrape against the tip of the blade, and realizes his surroundings have been replaced with an unfamiliar dark corridor. Moonlight streams in from a narrow window and lands on him, frozen. He’s unsure if he is unable to move out of fear or if there is an external force that stops him, and he’s not about to test it with the blade at his throat.</p><p>The flat of the blade that lies at his neck slowly increases its pressure as it turns on its side, and as it rotates, the moonlight glints off it. In the brief flash on the blade, he sees it splattered and dripping with blood, and his own blood runs colder than he thought possible, before the angle shifts and it’s just a blade again.</p><p>He’s going to die here. He’s going to be stabbed in the neck by a stranger in the middle of the night, not even sure of where he is and how he ended up here.</p><p>Seconds pass by, but the blade remains still. He can’t even tell if the pressure from the blade has punctured his skin or not. He can’t feel anything due to the cold sweat that has overtaken his body. He stares down the blade, committing all he can see of the dark scene in front of him, of the clean lines of the blade, of the vaguest outline of a person on the other end, to his memory. The last memory he’ll have.</p><p>The sword at his throat moves and <em> he’s going to die here and</em>—</p><p>Winston jolts up in bed, hands racing to his throat, amazed and reassured to find it intact and dry (well, drier than it would be if blood were spilling from it but still wet and sticky with sweat), and immediately hits his head on the low beam above it. He sits there on his bed with his hands wrapped around his own throat, drenched in sweat and shivering. His heart races and it’s a long moment before he’s finally able to release his grip on his throat, lowering his shaking hands to clutch at the edges of his bed, trying to catch his breath and ground himself. When the shaking and the cold finally passes, all that’s left is a bone deep weariness and burning in his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept at all. He feels even more tired than he had been when he finally fell asleep in the late hours of the night.</p><p>When he turns his head to look outside the glassless window, he finds that the barest beginnings of dawn are starting to happen outside. He must have only been asleep for a few short hours, not that it was much use at all. <em> No use in going back to sleep now</em>, he thinks. Especially not after the nightmare he just had.</p><p>He ignores the fact that this was the worst one yet, that the little things he’s been seeing in his dreams lately have been coming true. <em> It’s just a coincidence </em> , he thinks. <em> Things that happened during the day simply resolved themselves in my dream, and if the same resolution happens in real life, that just means it was the most logical conclusion to the premise</em>.</p><p>He rolls his eyes at himself for giving as much thought as he has to mere dreams. Now that he’s been awake for a few minutes, they’re beginning to fade. It does him no good to have his head stuck in his dreams. He has work and errands he has to do, and he might as well start now if he’s going to be awake.</p><p>Winston takes a few minutes to prepare for the day. It’s not long before he’s rushing out the door, grabbing his worn satchel and ducking under the bar that had broken off from the roof a few months ago on his way out, not bothering to wrestle with the lock that’s been broken since as long as he’s lived there. Anything valuable in there is well hidden enough and no one would want to steal from him, either.</p><p>He stops by Seren’s shop before the sun is even up, a carpenter who recently received a large order placed by someone from the Inner Circle looking for cheaper services, to pick up a cart, before making his way to the forests that lay to the east of the city. He eats as he walks. His job for the morning is to cart back to the shop the logs Seren had run out of time to cart back herself night before and to split as many of them as he can before midday. In exchange, Seren is going to patch the holes in his and Haven’s roof.</p><p>The way down to the forest is easy enough, but the way back is another story. The entire city lays on hills, and the forest happens to be downhill from where the shop is. Not the smartest move on the part of Seren when picking shop locations, he reflects as he lugs the cart up a hill. </p><p>It takes three trips and by his estimate, as many hours, before he’s gotten all of the logs to the shop. On his last trip back, he sets the cart down for a break to watch as a hunting party composed of the regular greycloaks of Axe’s army and led by a Capital member in a dazzling white cloak with a red line down the center, ride past him and out towards the river.</p><p>He recognizes some of the greycloaks. Employment as a soldier for Axe means decent money and job security. Many of the people he knows from growing up chose this path as soon as they were eligible. But he doesn’t. He jokes with his friends when they try to recruit him that he’s never been good at following orders and that he’d get kicked out, and they laugh and agree, but they all know there’s more reasons for not wanting to work for Axe. </p><p>When he gets back to the store with the last load, Seren hands him a cleaving axe and shows him how to split the logs along their grain. His first couple attempts get thrown into the firewood pile. She watches him until she’s satisfied with his work, before heading back into the shop to return to her own work.</p><p>He’s slow to begin with, but by an hour in he’s going at what he judges to be a decent pace. </p><p>“Winston!”</p><p>He spins around, hearing his name called. Passing by the fence that separates the yard behind Seren’s shop is Eris, a friend of his from childhood, waving at him.</p><p>“Got yourself a job?” he calls out, teasingly.</p><p>“You know it,” Winston answers, waving back with the axe in a manner an axe probably shouldn’t be waved in.</p><p>“Be careful with that thing. You even know how to use it?”</p><p>“Not really, but I bet you don’t either!”</p><p>“I’m not the one waving it next to my own head though. How long you working here?”</p><p>“Just ‘till noon.” He sees Eris wince. “Started this morning. Seren’s gonna fix mine and Haven’s roof for it.”</p><p>Eris brightens at the mention of Haven Orphanage and Elder’s Home, where they had both grown up. “Good to hear. I haven’t had time to drop by in a couple of weeks now. I’m off to Clearacre on assignment so it’ll be awhile before I can, too. Tell everyone I said ‘hi,’ will you?”</p><p>“Will do. I’ll see you around—and travel safe!”</p><p>Eris usually doesn’t have much time to talk when they come across each other, as he makes his living as a messenger for the Citadel. Every time Winston sees him, he’s either on his way to or coming from some place.</p><p>And it’s not that Winston doesn’t ever have a job—in fact he has <em> five </em> at the moment, it’s just that they’re all very temporary in nature. He does odd jobs around the town and becomes well acquainted with everyone. Wherever people need a spare hand—and there’s always someone who does—Winston is there. It doesn’t ever make him much and he’s more often paid in meals and favors than money, but he’s smart and a quick learner, so he’s able to make his living like this. It beats working for the Citadel, at least.</p><p>When the sun is high in the sky, Seren comes out to inspect his work.</p><p>“Good job,” she concludes. “Really good, for someone who’s never done this before.” She turns to look at him. “You ever consider becoming a woodworker?”</p><p>“Me? Oh, no, I could never handle the splinters,” he jokes, holding up his hand, which had acquired a few splinters from the morning. He’s pleased to know that his work is good but knows this isn’t a real job offer. No one is looking to hire these days. Most people in the slums of the Outer Ring can barely get by themselves, much less afford to pay someone else.</p><p>“Shame. You get used to the splinters, by the way.” She holds up her own hands, displaying the callouses she’s built up. “Anyways, I’ll be by your place—by Kitt’s right—and Haven before the end of the week.”</p><p>Winston nods in confirmation. They exchange more smalltalk, and Seren mentions to him that her uncle who lives in the wealthier part of the Outer Circle is looking to hire someone to accompany him to Honeywell to visit family. Not a long or dangerous journey, but since he’s elderly and wealthy he wants to and can spare the money to hire someone. She would go with him herself, but the order that just came in has her swamped. By the end of the conversation, he has directions to her uncle’s home and another job, with a bonus of this one being able to pay money.</p><p>His next stop is to see Joce, a toolsmith, whose shop is near the boundary between the Inner and Outer Circles. He had promised to help them with various tasks for the week in exchange for a new lockpicking set to replace the one that had met an unfortunate end in an incident he refuses to think about a few weeks ago (how was he to know those locks had been enchanted to attract all metal in the nearby vicinity <em> melt </em> after being opened in less than legitimate ways).</p><p>He makes it a good amount of the way there but he’s stopped in his tracks at the sight of a mage not clad in the usual white and red cloak of The Capital. It strikes him that today must be the first of the month—the day where Axelrod Citadel opens its doors to hopefuls seeking entrance to The Capital. It’s not an unusual sight; to see a few young, ambitious mage-errants enter Capital City near the end of the month, striding through the Outer Circle with confidence, hoping to gain entrance into the famed army. He’s even seen one or two of them again, cloak swirling behind them as they leave on missions or patrol the city. But most? Most had entered Axelrod Citadel and never left again. There’s never been an official word on what happens to those mages who fail The Capital audition process, but everyone knows King Axelrod doesn’t take too kindly to skilled mages not under his control.</p><p>Despite The Capital's reputation for extremely low rates of entrance, foreign mages and those with aspirations and talent still flocked to them. They are, after all, the most accomplished and powerful group of magicians known throughout the kingdoms, and at a certain point, if a mage wants to advance their skills, they have to join The Capital. Though lately, some months pass by without Winston witnessing a single candidate pass through town. He remembers when he was a child that not a month would pass without a dozen hopefuls at the gates. Now, from what he hears, almost all mages recruited into The Capital are born in the Inner Circle, children of those who have retired from The Capital themselves or those who can afford to send a child to receive a lifetime of training before even auditioning.</p><p>He always stops to watch these hopefuls pass by though, committing their appearance to memory, very aware that in all likelihood, he will never see them again. This one wears a blue cloak that’s so dark it’s almost black with its hood up and it covers most of their body, concealing whatever else they have on underneath. He can see a leather gloved hand peak out, resting on the pommel of the sword that hangs by their side. The scabbard hangs out from behind their cloak and he can see runes running down its side, which is how he had recognized them as a mage in the first place.</p><p>He looks up to the face and finds that it is uncharacteristically somber for a person brave enough to try their luck at joining The Capital. Most people who enter town for that purpose strut down the streets with confidence and wear an arrogant expression. From what he hears, those people would fit right in at The Capital, if only they had the skills to back up that confidence. Most, don’t. He follows their line of sight and sees that it's unwaveringly fixated on the citadel. The mage hasn’t once stopped to look at the strangers who stare at them and whisper.</p><p>The whispers. There are, of course, whispers. People lean over to the closest ear and size up the newest lamb on its willing way to slaughter. They judge their clothes and gear and wonder where they’re from that they haven’t heard the rumors of what happens to people who don’t make it into The Capital, or what kind of a person they are if they know and are brave enough to try anyways. The whispers don’t stop at just passing mages, either. They pervade every part of life in the Outer Circle. No matter how hard King Axelrod tries to stamp out any reference to a time before his reign, people have memories. Grandparents pulled the youngest of the family closer and in hushed murmurs, say what would be treason into young ears. They speak of a world where magic was freely practiced and a gift that everyone could partake in and benefit from. They don’t need to speak of how the world is now—the children have eyes of their own.</p><p>Where Winston stands now, Duael Air Plaza, marks the main entrance between the Outer and Inner Circles of the city. King Axelrod never misses an opportunity to remind everyone of his grand generosity. A spar held in this vast plaza takes place monthly, drawing large and eager crowds from both parts. The Capital shows off their incredible battle prowess to enthusiastic cheers as both a reassurance and a warning. <em> You are under our protection, </em> says the reassurance. <em> The harsh and evil forces of the world? The ones that claw oh so bitterly at our kingdom’s borders? They will never touch you, so long as you are loyal and grateful</em>, comes the whispered warning, after.</p><p>After the spars, vendors will set up their wares in the plaza, often reselling enchanted items the citadel sells in bulk: Lanterns whose wick and wax take twice as long to burn down and in the process burn twice as bright; seeds that repel pests and grow to produce bountiful harvests; butcher’s knives that never dull. Items that make life just a bit easier for the people, to give them the feeling of power themselves.</p><p>Magic is now a precious commodity allowed only to those deemed worthy or subservient enough. Some of the oldest rumors say that the hill on which Axelrod Citadel sits is filled with riches and magics one cannot even dream of (Winston would argue on that point).</p><p>Still, the ones who remember a time before Axelrod’s reign are few and far inbetween, especially in the slums of the Outer Circle, where few seem to make it that far into life. Now, when children hear stories of what came before, it’s just that: stories. All they’ve ever known is the way the world is, unable to understand that the world could ever really be anything different.</p><p>The foreign mage walks quickly on by. He watches their figure slowly make its way further down the street and maybe it’s the way they look different from every other swaggering, overconfident mage that he’s seen before, and maybe it’s his dream of walking towards the citadel making no progress at all, but for the first time ever, he feels compelled to speak to one of these passing mages, to warn them.</p><p>“You should turn back.” His voice rings out in the busy market and it startles everyone nearby into silence before the conversation picks up again with just a bit too much eagerness. Everyone's watching to see what happens. No one ever dares to try to intervene with mages they see approaching the citadel—they’re already dead in their eyes. He hopes he hasn’t made a mistake. The mage doesn’t stop walking.</p><p>“Really. You know what happens to people who don’t get in?” They stop and turn to look at him this time. Their face is neutral but the fact that they stopped at all must mean they’re curious. Emboldened by the response, he continues. “I’ve lived here my entire life. I can count on one hand with fingers left over the number of mages I’ve seen come back out in that red cloak,” he says, pointing to the citadel.</p><p>No response.</p><p>“You either come out in Capital Red or you don’t at all,” he says, trying again. <em> They have to get it, right? </em></p><p>They stare him down and it feels like their eyes are staring right into him. He wonders if they can read his mind; he has no idea what magic can do, so they might as well be able to.</p><p>After what feels like an eternity, they finally reply. “Thanks for your concern, but I think I’ll be just fine,” they say dismissively, before turning away and continuing towards the citadel.</p><p><em> Oh </em>. Just another mage with their head stuck in the clouds who thinks that they’re different, that they’ll be the one who makes it through, that they’re better than him. He feels a flash of rage. </p><p>“See if I care when you’re dead!” he calls out, angry at having wasted his time on a fool and at the fool for not listening to him. “I was just trying to save your fucking life,” he mutters sullenly to himself as he turns his back on the stranger walking away.</p><p>When he arrives at Joce’s shop, he spends an hour or so finishing his weeklong endeavor of cleaning the shop—no easy task considering the many small pieces he finds scattered on the floor of the workshop that he then has to identify and catalog—before then helping her with her bookkeeping. She then tells him the job for the rest of the afternoon is to accompany her to the home of some minor noble living in the Inner Circle who has hired her to overhaul his home security after a break-in and to help her evaluate what places might be vulnerable. The minor noble is all too happy to see them when they knock on his door. He welcomes them in hurriedly and nervously locks the door as soon as they enter. Winston privately rolls his eyes.</p><p>"The thief won't come back so soon after his—their last robbery," he tells the paranoid noble. "No one's stupid enough to come back when the people they stole from are on alert. Plus, we're going to make sure this won't happen again so you have nothing to worry about."</p><p>This seems to reassure the paranoid noble and after Joce none too gently tells him to give them space, he moves out of their way so they can begin to work.</p><p>As Winston walks through the rooms, passively evaluating, his mind begins to wander back to his encounter with the mage on the street. <em> Did I misjudge them that badly? </em> he wonders. They seemed so different from all the other ones in his experience. He had been confident he would be able to get through to them and he can't figure out where he miscalculated—<em>surely they weren't ready to throw away their own life, right? </em> When he realizes he's been standing still in this room for a few minutes now, he tries to put all of the useless mess with the mage out of his mind and focus on very real work he has to do, but despite his best efforts, his mind keeps on wandering back to them.</p><p><em> What even happens in the selection process? </em> he wonders. <em> Did they get close? </em></p><p>He looks out the fancy window at the sun that is slowly beginning to set. From here he can see the western part of the citadel. <em> Did any other mages show up this month? Were they made to fight each other? </em> He bets the mage he saw on the street would have won if so. When they looked at him, he had recognized a cold, bright intelligence in their eyes staring back. He wonders <em> what did they see in mine? </em></p><p><em> They’re probably dead by now</em>, comes the next, bitter thought. He turns sharply from the window with the citadel view and back to the interior of the room.</p><p><em> How did they die? </em> He rubs absentmindedly at his throat.</p><p>He realizes that during his musings, he's stopped working. Berating himself for getting lost in thought again and neglecting his chores, he shakes his head to try to clear thoughts of the dead from it.</p><p>When he meets back up with Joce, they compare notes. Joce gives the noble a quote and he is all too happy to pay the sum of money, which is more than Winston makes in a year. She arranges with him when she'll be back to install the security upgrades as Winston stands by idly. The noble thanks them profusely as they leave.</p><p>"So. A new lockpick set, huh?" she says without looking at him on their way back to her shop.</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"Similar to the one fused in the back door lock of that house?"</p><p>"Wouldn't know anything about that—didn't check out the backdoor since it looked like you had that covered."</p><p>"Mhmm. Well just some general knowledge I'm sure anyone would find useful: you can usually tell if a lock is enchanted by the weight of the metal. It's hard to tell, but they're just slightly lighter than normal."</p><p>"Good to know. I'll be sure to pass that on if I ever meet anybody who’d benefit from knowing that."</p><p>When they get back to the shop, Joce unlocks a small vault and hands him a week's worth of wages. Before he can even object, she closes his hand around it and says "keep it. I can afford it with the amount I just made."</p><p>Winston knows better than to look the gift horse in the mouth and so he closes his own. After all, it had been a very large sum of money Joce had just secured.</p><p>She then rummages through a box for a few moments before pulling out a small leather case and holding it out to him. He reaches for the lockpick set but Joce jerks it away at the last moment.</p><p>“Don’t get into too much trouble with this,” she says sternly, waving the pouch for emphasis.</p><p>“I’ve never gotten into any trouble in my entire life,” he responds, blatantly lying and they both know it.</p><p>She snorts and slaps the kit down into Winston’s hand. “Good one. Just don’t let me find out what you break into. Now get home, it's getting late—and be safe" she says, nodding at the window.</p><p>“Thanks, Joce,” he calls out as he pockets the coins and the kit in his satchel on his way out the door.</p><p>By now, it’s almost completely dark. Most of the lights come from windows of buildings he passes by. He walks quickly through the streets, taking shortcuts through alleyways and the narrow spaces between buildings and always keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. People disappear off the streets here—not often enough that it causes any uproar, but just often enough that they’re called disappearances instead of forgotten about and written off. The last one he heard about happened almost a year ago at this point, so by his estimate any day now there’ll be another one and it’s not going to be him if he can help it. He passes by his own rickety home, squeezed in the awkward space between Kitt’s cobbler’s shop and another plot of land. The space clearly wasn’t ever meant for a building of any sort so the cobbler lets him live there for a ridiculously cheap price. </p><p>He keeps walking further southeast, until he reaches a large building. It’s decently well kept, especially considering the state of the buildings that surround it, save for the roof which has become leaky these past few months. <em> Haven Orphanage &amp; Elder’s Home</em>, reads the faded sign above the door. He knocks and waits briefly before pushing it open.</p><p>Winston's barely got a foot in the doorway before his legs are assaulted by blurs of movement. He manages not to stumble and instead reaches down and picks up one of the children that have wrapped themselves around his legs.</p><p>"Hey kids," he calls out over the racket of active children running about.</p><p>"Hi Winston!" comes a staggered chorus from the children close enough to notice his entrance. He spends a few minutes greeting them. One of the children tells him excitedly how he got to go to the well today to help get water while another insists he looks at the craft she finished earlier. The kids around his legs finally let go at his insistence and he makes his way further into the building. He sets down Layla, the girl in his arms, by the kitchen door, before entering.</p><p>Inside it's also similarly busy to the room he just came from, with people of all ages cleaning up dinner. They range from some of the older kids, to volunteers, mostly former children from here like him, to the elders who live here. Across the room, Camden, one of the other volunteers, just a few years older than him, spots him and waves him over.</p><p>"You missed dinner again—don't worry, we saved you some though." He gestures toward the still full bowl on the counter.</p><p>"Thanks," he says, picking it up. "And yeah, I know. Work went on longer than I thought it would, but it paid way more than I expected it to so it was definitely a cold dinner," he says, talking while he eats.</p><p>"Oh? You? A paying job?"</p><p>Winston makes a face. "You don't have to sound so surprised. I get <em> plenty </em> of paying jobs."</p><p>"Favors don't count as pay."</p><p>"Yes they do. You never said 'pay' had to mean money."</p><p>Winston gets cold porridge from a dirty spoon flicked at his face. “Don’t be a smartass.”</p><p>"Hey!" he cries out, wiping porridge from his nose. With a devious smile he then smears the remains onto Camden's shirt.</p><p>"See if I save you any food next time you're late," he grumbles as he fails to dodge out of the way, but Winston can tell it's an empty threat. “Anyways, what was the job?” he asks as he begins to clean again.</p><p>“You know Joce? The locksmith with the shop near the plaza?” Camden nods. “Well some rich noble in the Inner Circle hired her to up the security for his home ‘cause it got broken into a like week ago. She quoted him an insane price and he <em> actually paid it </em>. I’ve been helping this past week with stuff around the shop and also scouted out the house with her and as payment she was supposed to replace my lockpick set, but she decided to also pay me on top of that.”</p><p>“Nice! What happened to your old one, though?”</p><p>Winston grimaces. “Let’s just say I’m the reason that noble wanted upgraded security to begin with.”</p><p>Camden looks around anxiously to see if anyone else had heard what Winston said, but the people next to them are engrossed in their own conversation.</p><p>“You <em> didn’t</em>,” he whispers furiously. “ Winston, I thought you stopped—what if you’d been caught? I know you know how dangerous that is.”</p><p>“It was—”</p><p>“—<em>shh, </em> ” Camden hisses, interrupting him and smacking him on the arm. “Not that loudly. Do you <em> want </em> to let everyone know you broke into an Inner Circle house?”</p><p>“It was fine,” he begins again, quieter this time. “I’d been watching that place for over a month before I actually went, and that nowhere near the most dangerous place I’ve broken into. Plus,” he begins, before looking around for himself and lowering his voice even further, “I always <em> know </em> if the situation is going to go south. So don’t worry, okay?”</p><p>“I still think that’s just luck.”</p><p>“Well if it is, mine hasn’t run dry yet.”</p><p>Truthfully, he isn’t sure what to make of his instinct that warns him whenever something is about to go wrong, that tells him the right move to make to get himself out of a sticky situation, but it doesn’t <em> feel </em> like luck. It’s unwaveringly consistent and in his experience, luck is anything but that.</p><p>Camden sighs but drops the topic. They spend the rest of the time they’re washing dishes in small talk, but Winston can tell he’s still worried for him.</p><p>Winston arrived late enough that after cleaning up dinner, the only thing left to do for the night is to help watch the younger kids until it's time to get them into bed. He walks back into the main room where most of them are gathered and notices a small group gathered around where Geoffrey, one of the oldest elders in the home, is sitting and approaches quietly, listening in on the tail end of the story he's telling.</p><p>"—threw me the torch. I was quick as a whip and managed to catch it with just one hand, all while upside down, and waved it at the beast. The flames flared bright green—as green as the leaves in summer, and shot up twenty feet into the sky," he says, waving his own arm around wildly as if he still held the torch.</p><p>He's heard this one before. In fact he's heard most of Geoffrey's stories multiple times as he's been telling the same ones since Winston was a child, albeit just a bit more exaggerated than he remembers (it had been ten feet when he first heard this story).</p><p>"Of course, the gryphon was no match for the magical flames. No matter how hard it flapped, the flames wouldn’t go out. They traveled up its wings and scorched them real good. The smell was <em> horrible</em>. It started going crazy trying to gain altitude. At some point I dropped the torch because it was swinging me around so much. But eventually it came crashing right towards the rest of the party, with me yelling the entire time—no man should be up in the sky like that—dropping me right in a lake in the process. Faron was able to impale it with his spear right in the chest as it fell. I was just fine after getting fished out of the lake—leg had some claw marks but otherwise I was just a bit waterlogged. I then cut off its head, ending its life and its damn reign of terror on us. Maru was able to make it lighter so we could bring the carcass back with us. The whole village had meat for weeks, and you better believe I kept that head on my wall until it began to smell.”</p><p>The children who sit and listen are wide eyed and thoroughly impressed at the tale. None of them had ever seen a gryphon before—not that Winston has, either. From what he knows, gryphons, along with many other magical creatures, started to slowly decline in population about a century ago. Now, where they’re rumored to be all but extinct. Personally, the idea of such a creature with a lion’s body and eagle wings and head flying through the air seems far fetched to Winston himself (it would have to have such incredibly large wings to support its body in flight), but Geoffrey swears by their existence. They clamor Geoffrey with questions (“How high did you get?” “Higher than the tallest treetops.” “Was the fire <em> really </em> green?” “It really was.” “How?” “Magic.” “How did you not drown?” “I know how to swim.” “What if a gryphon comes for me when I’m sleeping tonight?” “It won’t.”) until it’s time for them to go to bed.</p><p>This is by far the most exhausting job Winston has today—helping get rowdy children ready for bed. The older ones thankfully can do it themselves so it’s down to a dozen or so younger ones that they have to help. He feels like he’s always chasing down another child who seems to have infinite energy to try to get them to settle down. At one point, he finds a child has snuck back out to play again and he spends ten minutes convincing her that it’s time to sleep, and only the promise that he’ll stop by sometime this week to play with her that seals the deal. An hour later and after plenty of reassurances that gryphons won’t come after them in their sleep, the last one finally closes his eyes and Winston lets out a sigh of relief, wondering if he had been this annoyingly rambunctious as a child.</p><p>The rest of the volunteers who don’t live at the home any more, such as Winston, chat quietly between themselves for a bit, before one by one they depart for the night. By the time he arrives at his own home, the sun has been down for hours and he’s practically dead on his feet. He ignores the small stash of books he has stored under a creaky floorboard he had been hoping to get to tonight, and falls into his own bed at the end of another long day stacked in a series of long days. His last thought before falling asleep is <em> hope I don't have any dreams </em>.</p><p>But of course, dreams rarely pay heed to waking intentions.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Don't expect another update until August 22nd, 2021 at 1:37 AM. Also since I remembered this entire concept existed literally 11 days ago and I wrote all this in those 11 days, this is kinda ass so it might get edited.</p><p>Also? This is honestly more plot driven than character driven, so that + my shitty grasp on every characterizations + complete removal of characters from their original setting = OOC.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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